Animated series · Phase 4

What If…?

2021 · 32 min

The Watcher narrates alternate versions of MCU events across the multiverse: Peggy Carter takes the serum instead of Steve, T'Challa is abducted by the Ravagers instead of Peter Quill, and a zombie…

The Multiverse SagaDisney+85%Released
What If…? poster art

The story

The Watcher narrates alternate versions of MCU events across the multiverse: Peggy Carter takes the serum instead of Steve, T'Challa is abducted by the Ravagers instead of Peter Quill, and a zombie plague eats the Avengers. Some episodes are jokes, some are horror, and a few are the best thing Marvel released that year.

Across three seasons the anthology gradually acquires a spine — Doctor Strange Supreme, Infinity Ultron and a Guardians of the Multiverse team — and by the third season it is doing genuinely odd work, including a 1602 Elizabethan story and a Bill Murray-adjacent time loop. It concluded in December 2024.

Key facts

Release date
11 Aug 2021
Status
Released
Phase
Phase 4
Saga
The Multiverse Saga
Runtime
32 min
Certificate
TV-14
Director
Bryan Andrews
Writers
A.C. Bradley, Matthew Chauncey
Seasons
3
Episodes
27
Streaming
Disney+
Timeline placement
Multiple alternate timelines branching from across the MCU's history

Cast

ActorRole
Jeffrey WrightThe Watcher (voice)
Hayley AtwellCaptain Carter (voice)
Chadwick BosemanT'Challa / Star-Lord (voice)
Benedict CumberbatchDoctor Strange Supreme (voice)
Josh BrolinThanos (voice)
Michael DouglasHank Pym (voice)

Characters

Ultron poster art

Ultron

Ultron (originally Ultron-1)

Easter eggs

  • Chadwick Boseman recorded four episodes as T'Challa before his death, and the series dedicated its Star-Lord T'Challa episode to him.
  • Captain Carter's shield bears a Union Jack, and Hayley Atwell's version returns in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness as an Illuminati member.
  • The Marvel Zombies episode adapts Robert Kirkman's comic series, and led to the standalone Marvel Zombies animated show.
  • Infinity Ultron in Vision's body is one of the few Marvel villains to succeed at galactic genocide, and James Spader voices him again.
  • The Party Thor episode ends with Infinity Ultron arriving mid-rave, the first cross-episode plot hook.
  • Jeffrey Wright's Watcher opens every episode with 'I am the Watcher', the exact phrasing Uatu uses in his 1963 debut.
  • The Steve Rogers HYDRA Stomper episode puts Steve in a Iron Man-style suit built by Howard Stark, an inversion of both origins.
  • Season three's Elizabethan 1602 episode is drawn from Neil Gaiman's Marvel 1602 miniseries.

Trivia

  • Nearly every MCU actor returned to voice their own animated counterpart, an unprecedented casting arrangement for an animated tie-in.
  • Chadwick Boseman's episodes were recorded before his death in August 2020 and represent his final performances as T'Challa.
  • The cel-shaded style was developed to look like moving comic panels rather than conventional CG animation.
  • Season three released as a daily binge across Christmas week 2024, concluding the series after 27 episodes.
  • A.C. Bradley created and head-wrote the first two seasons; Matthew Chauncey took over for the third and later ran X-Men '97.
  • The series' animation was produced by Flying Bark Productions in Sydney.
  • It was the first Marvel Studios animated series and the first MCU project to depict a full multiverse.

Reviews

Critics

85%

What If…? uses its anthology format to indulge in the kind of comic-book playfulness the MCU's films rarely allow, with wildly variable but frequently delightful results.

The MarvelGossips verdict

The most uneven thing Marvel makes and occasionally the most inventive — a series where a genuinely great half-hour sits next to a shrug. Doctor Strange Supreme and the zombie episode are as good as any MCU film. The habit of pulling every season into a team-up finale is exactly what an anthology should not do.

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Frequently asked

Is What If…? canon?
Yes, as alternate universes. Captain Carter crosses into live action in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and the series' multiverse framework is treated as part of MCU cosmology.
How many seasons of What If…? are there?
Three, totalling 27 episodes, released between 2021 and December 2024. Marvel has confirmed the series concluded with season three.
Which is the best What If…? episode?
Critical consensus points to 'What If… Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?', a genuine tragedy, and the zombie episode 'What If… Zombies?!'. The T'Challa Star-Lord episode is the most fondly remembered.
Is this Chadwick Boseman's final role?
It contains his final recorded performances as T'Challa. He voiced four episodes before his death in August 2020, and Marvel released them across the first two seasons.
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